


rivers and roads

by azulaahai



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (or angsty with a side of fluff idk), F/M, I have no idea what I'm doing, Proceed with caution, but! ROADTRIP AU! fun!, fluffy with a side of angst, more tags to be added as we go along, planning for some mutual pining, road trip au, so this will likely be uncreative and contain all the tropes, they're sad but they have eachother now so that's cool, trying to cure myself from a writer's block-ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 20:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaahai/pseuds/azulaahai
Summary: She needed to get away.It was not a restlessness, not an itch for a change of environment. Sansaneededto get away.Desperate to leave King's Landing and a destructive relationship behind, Sansa Stark accepts the offer of a ride north with Jon Snow, childhood-acquaintance-turned-stranger. She's scared and a little heart-broken - he's nervous and brooding. It's not the recipe for the perfect road trip.(But maybe it is.)





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, stupid, angsty and fluffy road trip AU. I'm making shit up as I go along. 
> 
> Title from the The head and the heart song.

She needed to get away.

It was not a restlessness, not an itch for a change of environment. Sansa _needed_ to get away.

She wanted to go home, fill her lungs with northern air, hug her siblings, cry into her old familiar pillows in her old familiar house. She had been fighting so hard recently, to keep her head above water, and if she did not find a safe shore soon she felt sure she would drown.

It was Robb's idea. He'd always been a do-er, trying with everything in his might to solve every problem of Sansa's, and he'd called the other night with a promise of salvation.

His childhood friend, Jon Snow, who was in King's Landing now just like Sansa, had been offered a job at the Wall and was driving up north in a week. Generously (aye, Sansa remembered Jon as generous), he'd offered Sansa a seat in the car.

And there it was. An opportunity. A gift the gods have given her, while they whispered "we know we've screwed you over in every possible way, but here. You can have this one little thing.”

She could go home.

~~She'd just have to spend a week in a car with Jon Snow, whom she had not seen in years.~~

* * *

Jon was going home.

It was strange, really, how much he’d missed the north. He’d thought he had wanted warmth, wanted the sunshine and excitement of the capitol, but while here he’d spent most of his time feeling homesick. 

So when he’d been offered the job at the Watch, he’d jumped at the opportunity. Not only would he get to flee the damp heat of King’s Landing, he would also rise above his station - the position was a management one, and he would finally be the supervising instead of the supervised. He was young, of course, and it would not be easy. 

But Jon wanted to rise to the challenge.

Plus, he was ready now, he felt, to return north. It had been too long.

~~And he couldn’t stay afraid forever, could he?~~


	2. all my bags are packed, I'm ready to go; I'm standing here, outside your door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It begins.
> 
> Chapter title from "Leaving On A Jetplane" by John Denver.

Even before she was fully awake, a sense of relief had made its way into Sansa’s stomach. 

She blinked, the dim light of the room doing little to aid her in her efforts to kickstart her drowsy brain, but as soon as she remembered what day it was and _why_ , exactly, the anxiety that had been her constant companion lately had relented a bit, she startled awake.

Today was the day. 

Her _last_ day in this godsforsaken city.

She quickly scrambled out of bed, nearly jumping up. Her alarm had not yet rung - it must still be early - but Sansa itched to do something, to speed up the process. Anything to leave here faster. Anything to get home.

Sansa caught herself checking her phone every other minute or so, constantly dreading that text that would say the trip was cancelled, that it was all a practical joke, she hadn’t _really_ thought she would get to leave, had she?

But no such message came through. One from Joffrey did, however. Sansa clenched her jaw, attempting to delete it without reading. 

The room at the inn was depressingly small, and even after Sansa had opened the blinds, it remained gloomy, half-dark. Her bags had been packed well in advance, so she found nothing else to do but restlessly pace the room, five steps in each direction before reaching the wall, turning and repeating the process, counting the minutes, waiting.

Soon.

* * *

Jon pulled up outside the inn embarrassingly early, and a vague sense of stress was starting to build within him about this whole ordeal. In theory, it might not sound so difficult. A road trip, a favor to Robb. It was nothing - he was driving up anyway - it could be fun, even. People enjoyed this sort of thing - meeting people they had not seen for a long time. 

All this he knew. In theory.

But now that the practical reality of him and Sansa, sitting side by side in the car for hours on end, was creeping closer and closer ...

Aye, Jon was a little bit nervous.

He sent her a text asking if she was ready, saying he was outside, feeling more or less like a murderer. A woman walking her dog passed him as he was sitting in his car, and Jon could have been imagining it of course but wasn’t that suspicion in her eyes?

Snow, the serial killer. Beware, he parks outside your local motels and just sits there, intimidating dog owners.

The reply to his text came reassuringly fast. 

_Great! I’m coming down._

Jon’s heart literally started beating faster as he read, which was ... slightly embarrassing. It wasn’t that he was afraid of his best friends sister, per se! He was just ... uncomfortable in this situation, was all. Small talk was not his strong suit.

He recognised her instantly as she came towards the car, which was a little surprising considering how long it had been. She didn’t really look the same, either, he noted as she approached, his heart again picked up its pace - she looked so much more ... grown up now. The same red hair, still tall, ~~still intimidatingly gorgeous,~~ but something had changed about her, aye, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

She seemed ... haunted. Not at all the carefree girl he remembered from his teen years. 

This Sansa was burdened.

He wondered what she had experienced to make her so, his at-the-moment-overworked heart stinging a little at the thought.

* * *

He got out of the car, and despite all her anticipation and longing for this moment, Sansa had a sudden urge to run in the other direction.

He was the first northener she’d seen in months, in some ways a stranger but in others oh so familiar, and the confusion of it all was too much for her to handle in her already-emotionally-exhausted state of mind.

She did not really know how to feel about him.

Jon Snow. He looked exactly like she remembered him. Unruly dark hair, goofy lopsided smile ... and, obviously, the same honest grey eyes, she noted when they awkwardly stopped a few feet away from each other, both of them unsure how to greet the other after their clumsy “hello”s. 

In the end, Jon extended a hand for her to shake the same second she stepped forward to give him a polite hug, and it all turned into the most awkward almost-embrace Sansa had ever experienced.

Stepping back, blushing, biting her lip, eyes on the ground, her inner monologue one huge ‘well, fuck’, she scrambled to find the words to save the situation.

“Thank you”, she wound up saying, but it came out a half-whisper. Her brain chanted ‘well, _fuck_ ’ on a higher volume. “For letting me come, I mean. On the trip. I’m really grateful.”

“Oh”, he said with an a-little-too-long pause. “That’s really no problem. I was driving up anyway, obviously.” She nodded.

“Still.”

“Plus, I doubt you’ll be much trouble.” She looked up then, grey eyes meeting hers, and there it was. That dorky grin. She shot him a careful smile in return.

After loading her bag into the trunk in a few minutes, during which Sansa dropped her bag while trying to fit it into the car and Jon seemed to realise just then that maybe he should help her but then she felt weak and insufficient so she did it herself anyway but almost dropped the bag again in the process and Jon looked as if he might be reconsidering his decision to invite her along, they got in the car.

“You sure you’ve got everything?” Jon asked as he put his seatbelt on, somehow managing to look 10 and 50 years old at the same time, seemingly still a bit embarrassed about the bag incident. Or maybe it was the almost-hug that haunted him still.

“Yep. Good to go.” She tried an encouraging smile. He seemed unconvinced. Sansa sighed on the inside. She did not have the energy for social efforts now, and her anxiety was again acting up. 

So close, now, freedom. But she wasn’t there yet.

“So ... we just drive then?” he asked, starting the car, almost as if expecting her to object.

“Yes. Let’s go.”

She did not really know how to feel about him, no, this Robb’s-friend-turned-road-trip-buddy, she once again admitted to herself as the car began rolling. 

But the fact that he asked no further questions, and had not inquired as to why he was picking her up outside a shabby inn in the outskirts of the city, was undoubtedly a point in his favor.

And the fact that he didn’t ask about the way she anxiously looked out the window when they drove through the city, that he didn’t question the relieved way she let out a breath she had not realised she’d been holding as they passed the sign confirming that they’d now officially left King’s Landing ... ?

That certainly spoke to his advantage.


End file.
